I saw it for the first time today...

[NTKG]

So...

after going to college for 5 years before... I am back at school earning another degree...

Today was my first spring exam for my homeland security and emergency management class. As per usual, all instructors choose to give tests the same week, so after a week of little sleep I had my final exam for the week.

I walk in and take my exam, and cannot help notice the group of 4 sitting down from me blatently cheating thier ass off. I mean just terribly blatent. at one point a girl and a guy switched scantron sheets and then traded back and both started earasing and marking in new answers. WTF?

SO i study my ass off all week and can't fish, can't drink a beer, can't go hang out with my buddies and these folks just walk in and cheat....


pissed me off... thanks for letting me vent.

[TreednNC]

Sucks to know you did something honest, and somebody else cheats and may or may not make a better grade.

Me...I didnt study much....but didnt cheat either.....my grades showed it lol


Atleast you know your honest Neil. Thats all that matters.

[virginia boy 1]

I am in school, too. I have seen the same stuff...but it seems they catch the people in my class. Maybe you should go to the prof after class?
I'm in a medical school, and i figure if someone cheats then i don't want them to stick a needle in my butt.

[Malakas07]

SO i study my ass off all week and can't fish, can't drink a beer, can't go hang out with my buddies and these folks just walk in and cheat....

Hey man, story of my life right now.

Only thing in my profession if you cheated through school then it will definitely show in your work. Guys turning in projects outside of their timebox. It really hurts the team.

The difference is that in my profession someone will pick up the others slack. For your profession it could cost thousands of lives.

[basstardo]

Nobody is monitoring the exam? I'm going to school online and if I take a test is has to be proctored. That's crazy.

I think the ideas of accountability and self-reliance have gone out the window in this country.

[kingfisherman23]

Go to the professor. I had a group cheating in my Physics 251 class last semester, using a stolen test. I made the mistake of not saying anything (though I didn't look at the test or the answers). When the prof found out he gave us another test that I just barely passed, after scoring 93 on the first one.

Evan

[Fishbreath]

Homeland security, eh? Cheaters and liars...not good. I'd let the prof know but unfortunately, you won't be able to substantiate it with proof. Hopefully they don't score well and bust the curve if its graded on a curve. Sucks, but at least you know you did it without cheating.

[drawinout]

I'll be honest, I cheated on a couple homework assignments in high school. I realized really quickly it didn't help me in the long run. In college courses I have taken, I haven't seen anybody cheat. Seems like it would be a waste of money to attend college and not apply yourself. Cheating is mainly a young bucks sport in my opinion. I didn't go to college straight out of high school, and by the time I started taking courses the last thing on my mind was cheating.

[jhmorgan]

In my 3 years at VWC, I saw people cheating in class almost daily. Like Evan said, the thing that REALLY sucks is when the Professor finally finds out abuot it, they normally re administer a much much much tougher exam. Thankfully, in my major it was mainly long papers instead of those blasted exams.

[basstardo]

In college courses I have taken, I haven't seen anybody cheat.

Most colleges will show you the door if you're caught cheating. The university I'm going to has a zero tolerance policy for cheating. 1 strike and you're done. Honestly though, that's the way it ought to be.

[Fish Hunter]

What the hell is wrong with people?

Cheating on their wives, stealing at work, etc.

Character: doing the right thing when no one is watching. Apparently it is lacking a great deal these days. But, look at the leadership over the last 30 years and we can understand why.

" I am not a crook."
" Read my lips, no new taxes."
" I did not have sex with that woman, she was only smoking a cigar."

And we wonder why this country/world is in the shape its in.

[redneckranger]

IM not going to blast anyone why?!? I have made mistakes in the past but I gotta I'm disgusted to hear this. No wonder I can't find a a freaking job when I'm the only few honest ones left in this hell hole of a country

[AL_N_VB]

I feel better already.....

I hope you whack them terrorists with a hammer like you did that cobia.

Cheating sucks....

You only cheat yourself in the long run. So there was no professor around? Maybe your classmates were Al Khada?....If the the FBI, CIA and other agencies that hire in this field can convict you with DNA and carpet dust particles...think they can distinguish who was cheatin' in class or not.

[virginia boy 1]

here's an idea:

do you have a video option on your phone? I do and I would record them doing it. Just a thought.

[big brother]

I've probably got a slightly different perspective on this than most folks. I teach welding at a community college. We offer Diplomas and Associate Degrees. Below is a section that is included in every syllabus for every class taught in the department.

First a word about the profession you have chosen: In welding no one else
can do your assigned work. If you are given a weld to complete you are
expected to complete the work or be fired. That being said, when homework
is assigned you are expected to have it completed when it is due. If assigned
work is not done you will be asked to leave and will be counted absent for
that day (classroom & shop time). The assigned work will then be expected
at the next class meeting or you will again be asked to leave.

If I am that hard about homework, try cheating on a test in my classroom.
charlie
BTW-the first thing I say to a new class is,
"You know that no child left behind stuff you've heard all your life, well, I will leave you behind in a heartbeat."

[Shooter]

NTKG,, your just pissed because they wouldn't give you the answers and the girls were cute and wouldnt let you flirt :p

Heres what ya do,, video tape them cheating then post it on the web as to make sure everyone at the college see's it,,, wanna talk about someone being pissed :D

[Finger_Mullet]

This brings back old memories. When I was in middle school there were a group of kids that would cheat on everything. The teacher never could catch them cheating but knew it was going on because on all the test the cheaters had the same answers and everyone missed the same questions.

Well he left the answer key on his desk during break. Someone just happened to go up and write down all the answers. It was a multiple guess test so he just copied which holes were filled in. Well he passed them out to all his buddies. The next day they went down the list filling in holes without reading the question. Needless to say the teacher did this on purpose and rearranged all the questions so none of the answers would match. The people that made a 0 on the test went to the office and was suspended.

It was comical. No one ever tried that in his class again.

Darin

[Lip Ripper]

yall are a bunch of snitches :D

[Malakas07]

yall are a bunch of snitches :D

That's because they are stupid enough to do it all out in the open. The ones that are slick tap and move in cadence, use M&M's, roll the answers up in a pen etc etc.

[Fireball]

If they cheated on the test and the test results are to be used for hiring....they have cheated against "YOU"...Screw'em...Drop a dime on them and you will "HONESTLY" move up the hiring pole over their sorry asses !!!

Otherwise,if they get hired and you don't, they have taken money directly out of your household.......BURN THEM !!!

[BubbaHoTep]

Nobody is monitoring the exam? I'm going to school online and if I take a test is has to be proctored. That's crazy.

I think the ideas of accountability and self-reliance have gone out the window in this country.

Terry, hats off to the folks who are "requiring" a proctor. That's the way it should be done.

My wife is still working on her degree, and she took a couple of classes year before last and said cheating was "rampant" in there (large auditorium-type class - same thing you said Neil about swapping answer sheets and she saw them texting answers to each other). She expressed the same frustration others here have about people getting a "leg up" when it comes to getting hired.

I require that ALL WORK be done in my classroom. I don't give homework, so students don't have an opportunity to copy each other's work, and (thanks to copy-and-paste) any multiple choice test I give has five or six "forms" with the same questions (and answer choices) scrambled to the point that the students don't have time to figure out my system before class is over. They couldn't cheat if they wanted to. I realize that is merely taking away the opportunity and not really "solving" the problem, BUT unless you have evidence on video of the cheating (right on, Shooter and vaboy), it's difficult to convince little Johnny's momma sometimes that he would actually cheat. Yes, it's a major accountability problem, Terry. Agreed 100 percent. I'm just wondering with the focus on retention (at the college/univ level) how many university administrators are willing to push it anymore.

As for the online classes I teach, thanks to Google's "Advanced Search" feature, plagiarism is pretty easy (and free) to catch these days. But if an exam is unproctored, many students will cheat. I have just made every test "open book/open note" to avoid the aggravation. However, I put a time limit on it and make the tests longer. I explain to them up front if they don't study and think they have time to look everything up, then go for it, but they won't have time to finish the test, and they only get one attempt. Many of them take a "thrashing" on the first test until they see the "urgency" of being prepared. If the first exam is a total wash, I don't drop it, but I give them a chance to submit an essay test to replace the grade.

I think what teachers at any level need to do (of course, they didn't ask me) is weigh exams less of a percentage in relation to other things (like papers) that can be checked for cheating or plagiarism, in the absence of an effective monitoring system.

. . . . BTW-the first thing I say to a new class is,
"You know that no child left behind stuff you've heard all your life, well, I will leave you behind in a heartbeat."

If no child is left behind, no child will get ahead. :D

[RuddeDogg]

Hey Neil, some people go by the addage "win if ya can, lose if ya must, but always cheat.". Sadly some of these people get put in charge and bad things happen. I would have to say something about it.

[Mark55]

guns and roses said it years ago..."welcome to the jungle". thats what has become of the world. lies, cheats, oil companies, wall street, bankers, presidents...look at the guy from the peanut place. pleads the fifth and walks out. guess you can fight'em or join'em.

[virginia boy 1]

All of the above is true. Consider this: I am in a MEDICAL SCHOOL. Do you want a guy that cheated through school being your proctologist? How about a guy who can score a 79 and barely pass, but affirmative action gets him a degree.....do you want him- or the salutatorian- doing your colonoscopy?

In my school, you must get an 80 to pass. the attrition rate is 30-40%...and I get A's...and never cheat. I hate asshules who go out drinking then ace the test because they cheat. I say burn em all. well....maybe not if it was Law School. I think that it is probably rewarded in there. Hell, they probably teach a class on it.